My stomach drops and I stand up quickly. I can’t get out of this room fast enough.

She pauses. “Unless you’re guilty of Stefano’s murder, in which case your punishment is already decided.”

Chapter Twelve

LAYLA IS STILL nowhere to be seen and it’s well into evening. And with each hour that she’s gone, my anxiety gets incrementally worse. I push the last of my dinner around on my plate as I fidget in my chair at the round table in our common room. Everywhere I went this afternoon the guards were watching me like hawks. To top it off, I’ve been so tense I haven’t had an inch of space to process what I saw and what’s happening.

The door to the suite swings open and my head snaps up from my plate. Only it’s not Layla, it’s Ash. I stand up so fast I almost knock my chair over.

“Are you insane?” I hiss at him. “Don’t you think it’s basically the worst idea in the world for you to be here right now—especially alone, without Layla, on the day that they’re questioning everyone?” The shock is obvious in my voice.

“It would be, if I were the type to get caught. But fortunately, I’m not that type,” Ash says, sounding as calm as I am nervous. “Or at least I wasn’t until someone talked to the headmaster and I received three marks.” He walks past the couch and fireplace, stopping a few feet away from me.

I rub my forehead. For a second I wonder about Conner asking me if Ash told me which way to go and if Ash did have something to do with the murder. Could Ash have set me up? “You know I can’t lie without it showing on my face.”

“So you didn’t lie during your interview?”

“Well…”

He looks at me like I’m an open book. “You lied for you, just not for me?”

I fidget. “That’s not exactly how it went, either.”

Ash takes a step closer and I’m suddenly aware that there are a table and a window behind me and nowhere for me to go if I need to. “As far as I understand it, you didn’t do me the courtesy of telling Blackwood that I was headed to the boys’ dormitory. And not in any way headed in the direction of the hallway where you found Stefano’s dead body.”

I can feel the color drain from my face. “Oh god, you didn’t tell her that—”

There’s a light knock on my door, and we both turn. “May I come in, miss?” Pippa’s voice calls, and as the latch starts to lift all I can think is Please don’t let her have just heard Ash say that I saw the dead body.